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This feels like a lazy attribution of "Orwellian". This was a legal copyright issue which is pretty cut and dry, not Amazon silently deleting a book because of

This feels like a lazy attribution of "Orwellian". This was a legal copyright issue which is pretty cut and dry, not Amazon silently deleting a book because of its ideological implications. I don't like Amazon, but this is a miss.

MikeUt 5y ago
I recall when I bought a book from a bookstore, but later it turned out the publisher did not have a license. So they hired private security to break into my home, steal my book, and leave money in its place. Oh sorry, "on a computer". That makes it okay.
- tw04 5y ago
  If you purchased a car without legal title they would absolutely send a repo man to take it back at your home or at your work. This actually happened to a buddy who bought a car from Canada. It was a lease and the title was fake. GM sent repo men to take the truck back and told him tough shit, sue the seller.
  - MikeUt 5y ago
    And they would not notify me in advance, simply take it. And if it was in my garage, the repo man would use his master key to break in. And they keep a list of all items everyone has purchased, from cars to things as small and cheap as books, to be taken without notice if any legal issues come up in the future. The surveillance is total, the law is absolute and inescapable, the devices you own are backdoored to betray you. Compare this to buying a physical book, with cash. If you don't find this Orwellian, I don't know what to say.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      What do you think "Orwellian" means?
      - MikeUt 5y ago
        "It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, disinformation, denial of truth (doublethink), and manipulation of the past" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian Emphasis mine. Or are you trying to imply a single incident should encompass all those descriptors, before qualifying as Orwellian? If so, wouldn't that disqualify most incidents in 1984 itself?
        lefrenchy 5y ago
        I’m really not sure how trying to operate within the legal framework of a society is “surveillance” or “draconian control by propaganda” (the last two words you left unemphasized even though they change the meaning drastically). I guess surveillance is the closest, but this is likely just functionality in place to process returns, not some surveillance mechanism to make sure people don’t have banned books? If they remove someone’s book for no reason (or ideological/opposed to the book), then sure that would be “Orwellian”.
  - deeblering4 5y ago
    While similar in principal that’s not the same at all in terms of cost or scale.
    - tw04 5y ago
      Based on what? In the case of the car it's a multi-million dollar repo industry for similar events. For Amazon I'd imagine it would've been a massive lawsuit for copyright violation.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lefrenchy 5y ago
  That example is entirely different, Amazon probably needs to have this functionality to process returns making it the same process for them to avoid legal ramifications. It would be Orwellian if they did it for their own ideological purposes, sure. No evidence points to that being the case. I’m not really sure what else to tell you. Welcome to American techno-capitalism? There are obviously massive problems of surveillance, missing tech legislation, tech monopolies, and a general thirst for technology adoption without observance of the potential ramifications.
alisonkisk 5y ago
It's El Reg. They are witty. It's a joke.
- rualca 5y ago
  The thing about wit and parodies and sarcasm is that not everyone is able to identify it. There are plenty of examples of parody sites being cited as if they practiced journalism.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > "There are plenty of examples of parody sites being cited as if they practiced journalism." I frequently see folks post "articles" from "The Onion" to prove their point about some crackpot conspiracy idea they've got stuck in their heads from something they read on Facebook (probably another "The Onion" post re-shared as "fact").
- some_chap 5y ago
  Back when this happened and the article was written, (really - 12 years ago now!) they didn't have the full story, but it was pretty much the first of this sort of thing that Amazon had to handle. They did review, admitted they'd handled it badly and stated they'd not repeat it, as I recall...
throwawaysea 5y ago
Sure but Amazon isn’t that far away from banning books based on ideology. They have issued a ban for certain books already (https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-bans-books-that-frame-transgender-and-other-sexual-identities-as-mental-illnesses https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-bans-books-that-frame-t...), and have banned ads for other books that don’t violate their ideological policy but draw attention from activists (https://quillette.com/2020/11/07/gender-activists-are-trying-to-cancel-my-book-why-is-silicon-valley-helping-them/ https://quillette.com/2020/11/07/gender-activists-are-trying...). From what I have heard, they’re under significant internal activist pressure to ban books (that don’t align with progressive American politics) with some regularity. They can’t be trusted to hold this line unless they regain a mission orientation and shut down internal political activism.
- lefrenchy 5y ago
  “Shutdown internal political activism”. You obviously haven’t read Orwell if you don’t think that’s equally or more Orwellian.
lolc 5y ago
Surely, nobody would want an unlicensed copy of a book in their library, would they?! Remember, there are people distributing government reports or even scientific research without proper license! Thankfully, our devices track license status and prevent displaying of such material.
- vertis 5y ago
  It's not just an unlicensed version though, it's a version that someone sold without permission. This doesn't say Orwellian to me, it says Amazon living within the prevailing legal environment that they operate in. Correct me if I'm wrong but you can still add 1984 as a document directly to your kindle without any problems.
  - lolc 5y ago
    > a version that someone sold without permission. I'd call that unlicensed. And fraud too. > living within the prevailing legal environment Right. The book 1984 describes a society where it is outlawed to posses old books. So when a company within the prevailing legal framework removes that book written in 1948 from users' devices, the parallels are a bit too strong to not notice. > you can still add 1984 as a document directly to your kindle You can. That part was hyperbole on my part. Thankfully. But there are factions that work on making this difficult. Already now cloud companies are scanning for unlicensed copies in private stashes. The fight escalates as copying becomes cheaper.
    - vertis 5y ago
      There are many things to criticize Amazon about, but I feel like removing a e-book that is being fraudulently sold is a stretch. They have to operate with the legal environment. In this regard we're not close to 1984. It's not every copy of the old book. The users are free to use their refund to re-purchase the book from the copyright holder. Assuming a 1-to-1 price, it would have been smarter to replace the copy (though this has some other interesting ethical problems). I'm with you in general though. A while back I stopped using Amazon and kindle for a lot of my reading, preferring Calibre/koreader and sourcing from others where possible. Where there is no alternative to Amazon, I quickly export it to Calibre. I think cloud companies scanning for unlicensed copies is a much better example. It's only a matter of time until someone scans a book manually, and then X cloud company decides it's "unlicensed". Partly solved by client side encryption and/or owncloud, but still.
nix23 5y ago
Maybe you are to young, but at that time ~nobody was aware that content on YOUR device could be altered or deleted from the outside, that it was 1984 was just the cherry on the cake.
scotty79 5y ago
If you get same results with copyright that you'd get with totalitarian dictatorship then maybe ....

MikeUt 5y ago

I recall when I bought a book from a bookstore, but later it turned out the publisher did not have a license. So they hired private security to break into my home, steal my book, and leave money in its place. Oh sorry, "on a computer". That makes it okay.

tw04 5y ago
If you purchased a car without legal title they would absolutely send a repo man to take it back at your home or at your work. This actually happened to a buddy who bought a car from Canada. It was a lease and the title was fake. GM sent repo men to take the truck back and told him tough shit, sue the seller.
- MikeUt 5y ago
  And they would not notify me in advance, simply take it. And if it was in my garage, the repo man would use his master key to break in. And they keep a list of all items everyone has purchased, from cars to things as small and cheap as books, to be taken without notice if any legal issues come up in the future. The surveillance is total, the law is absolute and inescapable, the devices you own are backdoored to betray you. Compare this to buying a physical book, with cash. If you don't find this Orwellian, I don't know what to say.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    What do you think "Orwellian" means?
    - MikeUt 5y ago
      "It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, disinformation, denial of truth (doublethink), and manipulation of the past" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian Emphasis mine. Or are you trying to imply a single incident should encompass all those descriptors, before qualifying as Orwellian? If so, wouldn't that disqualify most incidents in 1984 itself?
      - lefrenchy 5y ago
        I’m really not sure how trying to operate within the legal framework of a society is “surveillance” or “draconian control by propaganda” (the last two words you left unemphasized even though they change the meaning drastically). I guess surveillance is the closest, but this is likely just functionality in place to process returns, not some surveillance mechanism to make sure people don’t have banned books? If they remove someone’s book for no reason (or ideological/opposed to the book), then sure that would be “Orwellian”.
- deeblering4 5y ago
  While similar in principal that’s not the same at all in terms of cost or scale.
  - tw04 5y ago
    Based on what? In the case of the car it's a multi-million dollar repo industry for similar events. For Amazon I'd imagine it would've been a massive lawsuit for copyright violation.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lefrenchy 5y ago
That example is entirely different, Amazon probably needs to have this functionality to process returns making it the same process for them to avoid legal ramifications. It would be Orwellian if they did it for their own ideological purposes, sure. No evidence points to that being the case. I’m not really sure what else to tell you. Welcome to American techno-capitalism? There are obviously massive problems of surveillance, missing tech legislation, tech monopolies, and a general thirst for technology adoption without observance of the potential ramifications.

alisonkisk 5y ago

It's El Reg. They are witty. It's a joke.

rualca 5y ago
The thing about wit and parodies and sarcasm is that not everyone is able to identify it. There are plenty of examples of parody sites being cited as if they practiced journalism.
- blooalien 5y ago
  > "There are plenty of examples of parody sites being cited as if they practiced journalism." I frequently see folks post "articles" from "The Onion" to prove their point about some crackpot conspiracy idea they've got stuck in their heads from something they read on Facebook (probably another "The Onion" post re-shared as "fact").
some_chap 5y ago
Back when this happened and the article was written, (really - 12 years ago now!) they didn't have the full story, but it was pretty much the first of this sort of thing that Amazon had to handle. They did review, admitted they'd handled it badly and stated they'd not repeat it, as I recall...

throwawaysea 5y ago

Sure but Amazon isn’t that far away from banning books based on ideology. They have issued a ban for certain books already (https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-bans-books-that-frame-transgender-and-other-sexual-identities-as-mental-illnesses https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-bans-books-that-frame-t...), and have banned ads for other books that don’t violate their ideological policy but draw attention from activists (https://quillette.com/2020/11/07/gender-activists-are-trying-to-cancel-my-book-why-is-silicon-valley-helping-them/ https://quillette.com/2020/11/07/gender-activists-are-trying...). From what I have heard, they’re under significant internal activist pressure to ban books (that don’t align with progressive American politics) with some regularity. They can’t be trusted to hold this line unless they regain a mission orientation and shut down internal political activism.

lefrenchy 5y ago
“Shutdown internal political activism”. You obviously haven’t read Orwell if you don’t think that’s equally or more Orwellian.

lolc 5y ago

Surely, nobody would want an unlicensed copy of a book in their library, would they?! Remember, there are people distributing government reports or even scientific research without proper license! Thankfully, our devices track license status and prevent displaying of such material.

vertis 5y ago
It's not just an unlicensed version though, it's a version that someone sold without permission. This doesn't say Orwellian to me, it says Amazon living within the prevailing legal environment that they operate in. Correct me if I'm wrong but you can still add 1984 as a document directly to your kindle without any problems.
- lolc 5y ago
  > a version that someone sold without permission. I'd call that unlicensed. And fraud too. > living within the prevailing legal environment Right. The book 1984 describes a society where it is outlawed to posses old books. So when a company within the prevailing legal framework removes that book written in 1948 from users' devices, the parallels are a bit too strong to not notice. > you can still add 1984 as a document directly to your kindle You can. That part was hyperbole on my part. Thankfully. But there are factions that work on making this difficult. Already now cloud companies are scanning for unlicensed copies in private stashes. The fight escalates as copying becomes cheaper.
  - vertis 5y ago
    There are many things to criticize Amazon about, but I feel like removing a e-book that is being fraudulently sold is a stretch. They have to operate with the legal environment. In this regard we're not close to 1984. It's not every copy of the old book. The users are free to use their refund to re-purchase the book from the copyright holder. Assuming a 1-to-1 price, it would have been smarter to replace the copy (though this has some other interesting ethical problems). I'm with you in general though. A while back I stopped using Amazon and kindle for a lot of my reading, preferring Calibre/koreader and sourcing from others where possible. Where there is no alternative to Amazon, I quickly export it to Calibre. I think cloud companies scanning for unlicensed copies is a much better example. It's only a matter of time until someone scans a book manually, and then X cloud company decides it's "unlicensed". Partly solved by client side encryption and/or owncloud, but still.

nix23 5y ago

Maybe you are to young, but at that time ~nobody was aware that content on YOUR device could be altered or deleted from the outside, that it was 1984 was just the cherry on the cake.

scotty79 5y ago

If you get same results with copyright that you'd get with totalitarian dictatorship then maybe ....